


A Budding Musician

by stale_fry



Series: Fry's South Park [2]
Category: South Park
Genre: Gen, Musician Craig, POV First Person, Possibly Pre-Slash, Slice of Life, Tweek's POV, creek pre-slash that is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2018-11-15
Packaged: 2019-08-24 04:28:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16632938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stale_fry/pseuds/stale_fry
Summary: Try to Sleep is by Attic Abasement, you can listen to it here: https://youtu.be/uJXtI4GV5Dg?t=8





	A Budding Musician

    We were in Token’s basement one rainy Thanksgiving break day. It was Sophomore year. There was all sorts of stuff down there, and it was all in big, leering piles like monsters trying to decide if there was any meat on my bones that they could eat. Unfortunately for them, there wasn’t. I made sure of that.

    Shoved up against one well-mannered basement wall was a piano. The Blacks also had a piano upstairs, but that one was grand and had its cover open, smiling at me. I didn’t like its smile; that’s why I never tried to play that one even though I knew I could. No, this piano didn’t smile. It was an upright like the one in the choir room at school. I wasn’t in the school choir, and couldn’t really sing at all -still can’t,- but when Craig would get detention or be suspended, I would eat my lunch in there and talk to the choir director. She was a nice lady and she let me play her piano. She taught me how, actually.

I sat myself down on the small bench, short legs dangling above the ground and lifted its lid. I quickly realized that it seemed to be very out of tune as I plunked a few keys. That was okay, I could still play something.

As I started, Token walked over to see where the sound was coming from.

“Ah, found our old piano, I see,” Token said pleasantly, “What’re you playing?”

“Um,” I respond with a pathetic, quivering voice, “I-I don’t know. Just s-some random chords I guess.” I forfeited playing anything else to rub my skinny arms self-consciously.

 

“Hey, guys, look what I found!” Clyde shouted like an excited hog that had found himself some snacks. Token turned his head, and I hopped off of the stool to cautiously peek around a pile monster. He was holding up what I swore was a possessed porcelain baby doll. She had one completely black onyx eye, her other socket cracked to the point that it didn’t exist. Her skin was the purest white I had ever laid my eyes upon, with green-yellow stains on her clothing.

 

She stared at me.

I stared back.

 

I convulsed and screeched.

 

“GAH! What the f-fuck is that thing and why are you h-holding her?” I asked, terrified.

“Her?” Clyde asked, eyebrow cocked. He examined her with an ugly focus.

“Tweek, it’s a doll,” Craig commanded me to believe from somewhere in the massive room. I did, and I relaxed. Mostly. I would be keeping an eye on her -its- eye.

The six-foot-ten Craig Tucker revealed himself from behind a hungry monster, gripping some sort of case in his hand. It was a guitar case. Token looked at it.

“Huh. Didn’t know we had that. Is there actually a guitar in there?” He asked. Craig unlatched it nimbly with a blank look.

“Yeah,” He answered monotonously, like a drowned robot.

Nobody else in this room knew he could actually play it. The only people in this town who had the special privilege of knowing were me, his mom, and his sister. His dad did too, but he never cared to listen. Craig didn’t like letting people know anything about him; he preferred to keep almost entirely to himself. So, why, then, was he sitting down and putting the comparatively small guitar in his lap in front of Token and Clyde?

With an even, but very pierced face, he strummed the lowest string. Then the next and so on until the last. His face then contorts into a barely visible cringe.

“Out of tune,” he informed us, quietly and gruffly, as he began to go through the process of tuning by ear. The harmonics he quickly played rang together and he adjusted the pegs to the liking of his musical ears. Token looked at him curiously, and Clyde spoke,

“Wait, can you play?”

“Yeah,” Craig responded, occupied.

“That’s super cool man, why haven’t you told us that before?” Token inquired, sitting down in front of Craig. The other two of us followed suit, becoming sheep.

“Wasn’t relevant,” He mumbled inaudibly.

“Cool talents are always relevant, dude!” Clyde argued with the smile of a golden retriever.

“Talents,” Craig parroted numbly.

With his tuning finished, he sets his fingers on the small wooden neck of the instrument. I realize that he could snap it easily if he wanted to. I also realized that he could snap _my_ neck easily if he wanted to. I scratched at the back of my neck with bitten-into-hell nails.

“Yeah, dude! Play something for us, pleaaase!” Clyde begged, smile still pasted on.

Craig neutrally looked to me.

I considered his telepathic question for a moment, then mouthed _Try To Sleep_. He looked back at the fixed downwards facing point that he was always so interested in, and he nodded.

“Okay. This is called _Try To Sleep_. I wrote it,” he explained plainly. He set his large, calloused fingers on the guitar’s neck again, and the song began. The vocals were soft and melancholic, almost hesitant. The notes he plucked on the little guitar in his lap made up a melody that sang along with his rumbling voice.

  


_“Like every morning,_

_It can feel so boring_

_Every other day,_

_I’m wide awake._

 

_Going home_

_Is where I lay my head down_

_And try to sleep_

 

_And a home,_

_It can be forgotten,_

_If it needs to be_

 

_I lay down a thousand landlines_

_And apologize_

_Ten thousand times_

 

_Oh, and son_

_Don’t you make your mother_

_Mad with me_

 

_Because how_

_I already feel the sadness_

_In everything.”_

 

_..._

 

__

**Author's Note:**

> Try to Sleep is by Attic Abasement, you can listen to it here: https://youtu.be/uJXtI4GV5Dg?t=8


End file.
